mr. larson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to submit for the record the social security administrator's statistics on women, which is that almost 49% of all elderly, unmarried females receiving social security benefits rely on social security for 90% of their income. thank you, mr. chairman. >> you're become. mr. kelly, you're recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. looking through all this, and again, i think sometimes we forget where the revenue for social security comes from, and it is, of course, from wage taxes or federal insurance contributions act, whatever you want to call it. so it does become a math problem, or a consideration. when i was looking at the total of dollars that come in, payroll taxes make up for 87% of the revenue that comes into social security. another 3% comes from taxes on benefits, and then another 9% on interest on that money. but i'm getting down to when social security was started, if you look at mortality rates, retirement versus the end of benefits being paid to somebody because t

mr. larson for his opening statement. >> thank you mr. chairman. we do both agree that we need to act now. both have put forward solutions but i think the american public needs to hear. let me start was something i think every member of the committee for every member of congress should know. 10000 baby boomers per day become eligible for social security. look across the country and you can understand that issue demands that we act now and responsibly. social security is america's insurance program. it is something the public understands eminently. why? because every week, by weaker monthly that they look at their pace stuff they see enter fica, the federal insurance contribution. the federal insurance contribution, there's a deduction that has been made. we're often here in the course of dialogue that government should run more like a business. in this case, it should run like an insurance business of the action warily sound. the last time we address this issue action warily was in 1983. ronald reagan was president and to put it was speaker of the

mr. larson's district is retiring to my district. i can absolutely assure you social security is a promise that will be kept. it is golden. what they say right now is the social security trust fund will expire in 2034. sounds scary, is scary. but it's not that hard to fix it. it will get fixed. it's politically inconvenient to fix it, which is why we haven't dealt with it. it's not so much about ideological divide, i don't think. i think it's more about whatever you do, you're going to affect one group or another. when i looked at this two years ago, i was coming up with a plan -- i wanted to come up with my own plan. there are two plans that exist right now that i'm aware of to fix it. one sam johnson has, which basically cuts benefits, raises the retirement age, cuts the initial benefit by spreading out the number of years that you use to calculate the initial benefit, and it does change cpi. changing cpi, mr. larson said, is one of the proposals that came out of the simpson-bowles bipartisan study group. it's the only proposal tha

mr. larson's proposal of doing it by increasing the green and is politically feasible. in the end, everybody will have a little skin in the game. that is what ronald reagan and tip o'neill did. you know, when i first started practicing a lot as a tax lawyer and those numbers are near and dear to my heart and in 1982 i believe the maximum wage on which social security was around $3000 and today the tate -- roughly that so five times, six times as much as it was when i started in 1982. it is an index and there is a whole lot more tax being upheld and every year it goes up some based on the inflation rate. when i first started looking at this i knew that for anything that we did had to be politically feasible we had to get broad consortiums on boards of the first people i called was the aarp and they will matter you attend at me but i tell you. they sent folks over to my office and i had a computer program that had the variables for the retirement age and the cap on the payroll tax and the amount of the payroll tax in the chain cpi in the adjustment of the thing every year

mr. larson's proposal is feasible. . , everybody will have a little skin in the game. when i first started practicing law, i started as an accountant so numbers are dear to my heart. in 1982, i believe the maximum wage was around $20,000. noty, when you say it is indexed, it kind of is because today, the maximum wage is $135,000. that is five or six times as much as it was when i started in 1982. every year, it goes up. when i first started looking at this, i knew that from anything we did, to be politically feasible, we had to get broad consortiums on board. the first people i called with a aarp. they sent some folks to my office and i had a computer program set up with the variables. cap on the payroll tax. the amount of payroll tax. the adjustment per year. i said, let's look at these burials and see if we can come up with something because you represent the biggest group that is affected by this. young people don't even think they will ever even get it. i said i need your help. if you're not on board upfront, we have to change things. they said, we do not do that.

mr. larson: o he -- on the gate about whole government approach, aim just concerned you throw the term around like it's candy at a parade because at the same time you have testified that someone, one of you did, that belt road initiative is problematic policy. at the same time you testified, department of commerce, bimonthly meetings with u.s. companies and u.s. embassy in china to figure out ways for those u.s. companies to access projects. to save time you talk about whole government approach. not going to be experts on trade or tpp but have some concept of at the argument was on how it fit ship and into leveraging u.s. economic policy and strength in asia vis-a-vis china. just that basic understanding would be helpful for you-all. i don't think you are talking about how it fit into leveraging u.s. economic policy and strength whole gover. you may be talking about a whole pentagon approach. if there is a whole government approach, which like to know t not today. but an example, if we're an era of great power competition, you talk about the last one we had, we're not doing those things today

mr. larson, for working on this amendment with me. countries around the world are already prioritizing the go their fuel cell industries. in order for the united states to remain competitive in this global economy we must support the research and development of new and innovative energy technologies. including fuel cells. robust federal funding of technologies that are not yet commercially viable like solid oxide fuel cells allows the united states to remain on the forefront of cleaner energy technologies and will help grow jobs across the country to meet the entire world's demand for cleaner, cheaper energy. in my home state of connecticut, danbury and rgy, a toring n us -- torington based company, has become a lead for the delivering clean, affordable fuel cell solutions. researches at fuel cell are developing new applications for solid oxide fuel cell technology and making great advances in the field of stationary fuel cells. the department of energy program that our amendment increases funding for supports jobs in connecticut at f

mr. wadley. >> good morning, commissioners. >> supervisor peskin: good to be back. nice to see you. >>ness. chair larson and the backs are out today, so i'm filling in. items 7, 8, and 9 were passed without comment by the c.a.c. item 6 on your agenda, ion ocation of nearly $10 prop k funds, i had asked for equity strategy tree planting. locations in the bayview specifically would be getting trees next year. chair larson also asked about the twin peaks tunnel track way improvement, and in particular, the outreach done as he being a regular rider had not heard about anything going on there until he saw it on the c.a.c. agenda. staff had assured him they had done significant outreach, and there would be ambassadors on hand during the closure. one thing you'll see in the minutes, we had a snificantly long discussion and q&a are sf mta director of transportation ed reiskin and john haley. we had been inviting them for several months, maybe years, to speak before us. i think this was the first time they had ever come before our body. our questions were limit today operations performance, and the two directors